Skimpy

2022-03-23T00:00:00Z

EDA #

I work with data a lot, but the nature of my job isn’t to dive super deep into a small amount of datasets, I’m often jumping between several projects every day and need to just get a super quick glance at some tables to get a high level view.

When I’m doing more interactive exploration I’ve graduated from Jupyter cells with df_N.head() to using an amazing tool called visidata

However, Visidata is a terminal based application and I’m often in an iPython console… so is there a way to move even faster for my super quick summary views?

yes!

Skimpy #

First thing to do is pip install skimpy and then it’s as easy to get some summary stats with skimpy <data>

This is super nice for seeing missing values in particular as well as the distribution shape of the data.

iPython #

But wait… I just said I’m normally in an iPython session but that was called from zsh.. If I’m hoping back into zsh I might as well use visidata to have more powerful exploration at my fingertips. So… can I see this table quickly without breaking my iPython workflow?

Of course you can with magic!

The above assumes you’re looking at a file, like you would in the terminal. skimpy works even better in iPython with from skimpy import skim then pass any DataFrame to skim!

Wireguard

2022-03-12T00:00:00Z

VPN #

Virtual Private Networks are a big deal, and this shouldn’t be considered anything even close to a guide on using them. Here are just my notes and some setup for how I use wireguard at home.

Wireguard #

Wireguard is an awesome peer-to-peer VPN tunnel that makes it really easy for me to get into my home network when I’m out and about. My main reasons for this are 1. I don’t trust public wi-fi and 2. I want to use pi-hole for ad blocking when I’m not at home

Wireguard can be configured as a “peer-to-site” VPN tunnel as well. My vpn setup let’s me jump to various machines on my network from anywhere!

I use pivpn in a VM that’s already running pi-hole to host my wireguard server. It’s super easy to setup just by following the instructions on the pivpn site.

The reason I like it is that I have a nice cli for managing wireguard configs.

dumbledore@pihole-vpn:~$ pivpn
::: Control all PiVPN specific functions!
:::
::: Usage: pivpn <command> [option]
:::
::: Commands:
:::    -a, add              Create a client conf profile
:::    -c, clients          List any connected clients to the server
:::    -d, debug            Start a debugging session if having trouble
:::    -l, list             List all clients
:::   -qr, qrcode           Show the qrcode of a client for use with the mobile app
:::    -r, remove           Remove a client
:::  -off, off              Disable a user
:::   -on, on               Enable a user
:::    -h, help             Show this help dialog
:::    -u, uninstall        Uninstall pivpn from your system!
:::   -up, update           Updates PiVPN Scripts
:::   -bk, backup           Backup VPN configs and user profiles

When I’m ready to add a new client to my wg network, it’s as easy as pivpn add and follow the instructions. The easiest part here is that you’ll be given a QR code in the terminal that you can just scan with the client (like a smart phone) and you’ll have your wireguard config handled by the app (oh right, download the wireguard app) in no time!